Cast and crew
Regular voices come from Lorenzo Music, Frank Welker, Maurice LaMarche, and Arsenio Hall, with guest voice Karen Hartman. The episode was recorded on July 1 and July 2, 1986. Arsenio Hall, Maurice LaMarche, and Lorenzo Music recorded on July 1; Frank Welker recorded the following day.2
The principal characters are Egon, Peter, Ray Stantz, Winston Zeddemore, the Diva, the conductor Leopold, the stagehand Metzenbaum, the Valkyries, and the Phantom of the Opera. Both Slimer and Janine Melnitz sit this one out.
Plot
Egon invites Peter to the Metropolitan Opera, "the Met," for an evening of opera. Peter, mishearing, assumes they are going to a Mets baseball game, and turns up wearing a Mets hat. During a performance of "Ride of the Valkyries," real Valkyries appear and wreak havoc through the opera house. Peter and Egon both rush to save the Diva; Egon collides with an actor, while Peter reaches her and earns her gratitude, much to Egon's annoyance.
Egon offers the Ghostbusters' services to the Met for free in the name of art appreciation, and Leopold accepts. The next morning the team arrives, Egon having traded his white tuxedo for the standard uniform. While working the case, Winston hears from the janitor about the Phantom of the Opera living in the basement; Egon dismisses the Phantom as a movie character. The Diva picks Peter as her bodyguard, mostly to make Leopold jealous. The other Ghostbusters track P.K.E. readings up to the roof, where they nearly fall off, then down a pipe to the boiler room, but cannot pin down the Valkyries. When Leopold holds a rehearsal, the Valkyries return.
The next concert begins with the Valkyries still loose. Leopold refuses to cancel and the show goes on despite the danger. He confronts the Diva, calls her bluff, and she chooses Leopold, leaving Peter tossed out of her dressing room. Boasting about being a national hero, Peter is snatched by the Valkyries, who intend to drag him off to Valhalla. The others seal the building to trap the entities inside, rig a trap near an open skylight, and capture the Valkyries. The audience mistakes the whole firefight for part of the production and cheers wildly for the Diva and Leopold. As the team packs up, they spot the Phantom of the Opera leaving the building; he says the Ghostbusters made so much noise he could not get any rest. They let him go without interference, more than a little dumbfounded.
Production and alternate versions
Two versions of this episode exist. In the scene where the Ghostbusters fall from the ladder, one version uses the series' regular score, while the other plays "Driving Me Crazy," performed by Tahiti from the soundtrack album. The Tahiti music version appeared on the Magic Window home videocassette released in the 1980s.
The episode title nods to the 1935 Marx Brothers film "A Night at the Opera." During the episode Egon name-drops the conductor Arturo Toscanini and the composer Giacomo Puccini, Winston references King Kong during the rooftop fight, and Peter offers to tell the Diva about the time he saved the world, a likely callback to the first film. Metzenbaum mentions a previous job at Radio City, the entertainment venue at Rockefeller Center.
Writer Mark Edens later wrote "A Blue Knight at the Opera" for Police Academy: The Animated Series, which featured a similarly styled character also called "Diva."
Animation errors
The episode has several continuity slips. When the team climbs the ladder, the jumpsuit leg shown above Egon belongs to Egon even though Winston is ahead of him. While the Ghostbusters hang from the ladder over the street, the figure on the left appears to wear Peter's brown jumpsuit, but Egon is in that position. Maurice LaMarche voices one of Winston's lines. In the opera house basement, Egon, Ray, and Winston suddenly wear tan gloves they did not have on the roof, and the gloves vanish when they drop to the floor. At the start of the final battle on the catwalk, a second Winston appears in Ray's place, and after Winston opens the skylight Peter is miscolored as Ray. Winston wears Ray's jumpsuit at the end of the episode, and through much of the episode the traps are miscolored yellow with their warning stripes often missing.
Legacy
Valkyries returned to the franchise in Ghostbusters: The Video Game as the Opera Diva ghosts.
-
Eatock, James & Mangels, Andy (2008). The Real Ghostbusters Complete Collection booklet, p. 9. CPT Holdings, Inc.
-
Marsha Goodman (1986). Episode Call Sheet and SAG Report, "A Fright at the Opera" (1986).
